THE EVOLUTION OF CARIBBEAN SOCIAL POLICY: Reasons for the Changes and Shifts in the Social Policy Agenda From the 1940’s to the Present Period.
Social Policy may be broadly defined as a system of social welfare that includes economic as well as non-economic objectives and involves some measure of progressive redistribution in command over resources1. Using Mishra’s typology of social welfare models (see Fig. 1 below), this paper describes the evolution of social policy in the English-speaking Caribbean. Drawing primarily from the experiences of Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica, four chronological periods are used to highlight the factors contributing to the major developments in social policy: 1) the Immediate Post-War Period and the Moyne Commission (1940 to 1950); 2) Transition to Self-Government (1950 to 1961); 3) Ideology and the Immediate Post-Independence Period (1962 to 1973); 4) the Oil Crisis, World Recession and Structural Adjustment (1970 to 1980’s); 5) (Conclusion) The Present Period (1990 to present)2. A review of the literature revealed that a combination of social, economic, political/ideological and international factors contributed to policy development at each stage of this evolutionary process. This paper argues that as a result of these factors, Caribbean social policy gradually moved from a strong residual approach prior to the Moyne report, and tended to a more institutional approach during the transition period to full internal self-government, then to a more structural approach in the immediate post-independence period, and back to a residual approach when structural adjustment policies were instituted in the 1980’s. Of course, in reality the policies formulated in the various periods do not conform perfectly to Mishra’s types. However, this does not detract from the applicability of the model to the present analysis, as it is an inherent feature of all ideal types (as is implied by the descriptor “ideal”). Also, while the general factors contributing to the evolution of Caribbean social policy has been highlighted, the specific ways in which these factors manifested in each country are extensively discussed.
Fig. 1
Mishra’s Welfare Models1
Main Features
Type of Welfare
Residual
Institutional
Structural
State responsibility in meeting needs (ideology of state intervention)
Minimal
Optimal...
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“Jamaica’s a country of great dichotomy. On the one hand you have a tourist industry with great beaches and resorts, but on the other you have such great poverty and the violence that goes along with that.”(Michael Franti) In this paper, I will talk about the geography, the history of Jamaica, the people that live there now and that lived there in the past, the lifestyle of the society, and the society, like the government and economy.
In November 1974, the Working Peoples Alliance(WPA), a political organization, was formally launched in Guyana. Several independent Guyanese organizations including WPVP(Working Peoples Vanguard Party), IPRA( Indian Political Revolutionary Associates), RATOON, the ASCRIA( African Society for Cultural Relations with Independent Africa) , and independent people constituted the ‘alliance’. The founding statement, representing of the new politics, cited the stand against race based election politics, violent political repression, the worsening economic conditions of the masses, cancerous corruption and denial of academic and press freedom, as factors in its formation. The coalition that comprised WPA also addressed regional and international concerns. It pledged to strengthen the unity of the Caribbean masses and identified itself with the suffering masses everywhere with the maxim that it stood for the “destruction of imperialism and its neocolonial systems and for the revolutionary unity of all subject and liberated peoples.” More importantly, the critical representation of the “new politics” embodied in the alliance was its multiracial appearance and programmatic declaration of promoting racial unity. This was not incidental. The disparate organizations that constituted the alliance and the new politics it embraced all emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s and were emblematic of the convulsions and shifts in the political culture embodied in the ‘long sixties’
The majority of the nearly 500,000 slaves on the island, at the end of the eighteenth century endured some of the worst slave conditions in the Caribbean. These people were seen as disposable economic inputs in a colony driven by greed. Thus, they receive...
Female children born into low income families in Jamaica and other islands of the Caribbean are burdened with a stereotype that their male counterparts will never know. When faced with the gender oppression their society has constantly been feeding, and the fact that so many women must act as the single financial heads of their families, many women of the Caribbean must settle for low paying occupations associated with 'female' or domestic labor. For women born into families at the bottom of the economic ladder, there is little hope of social mobility or escape from the fist of poverty. In most cases, the cycle continues to feed itself from mother to daughter. In my paper I will demonstrate this cycÀle by examining the Caribbean women's role in the family as head of the household and the education, employment and survival strategies characteristic to many of these women. I will conclude my paper by discussing some of the new organizations and movements that have surfaced in the Caribbean within the past thirty years that are fighting for women's empowerment.
Works Cited: Ferguson, James. (1990) The Anti-politics Machine: ‘Development’, Depoliticisation, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho, Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Cambridge. University Press McMichael, Philip. The. (2000) “Development and social change: a global perspective.”
Poverty is not just an issue reserved for third world countries. Instead, poverty is a multifaceted issue that even the most developed nations must battle
societies to reexamine their view of the Caribbean. In this paper the following topics in The
Laurent Dubois and John D. Garrigus. "Slave Revolution in the Caribbean 1789-1804: A Brief History of Documents.” Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2006.
Situated just south of Cuba in the Caribbean Sea, Jamaica is well known as a popular tourist spot and the birthplace of reggae music. Populated initially by native Arawak Indians, who gave the island its name, “land of wood and water (Jamaica).” However, this beautiful land’s almost pristine beauty was shattered by outbursts of violence surrounding the 1980 political elections. This fighting was sparked by the people’s mistrust of the ruling socialist party at the time. The reasons for this fighting and this mistrust are not simple, they are intrinsically tied to the island nation’s history from the beginning of its colonial period five hundred years before.
The Caribbean is often overlooked when the concept of slavery is discussed. However, the Caribbean islands played an integral part in the building of various countries’ economies around the world; primarily European countries. Many of the social stigmas that are associated with slavery are still present in various Caribbean countries’ societies today. Caribbean cultures have very strong African roots as of the numerous traditions carried from Africa by the slaves. This paper will give an overall view of slavery in the Caribbean and go more in depth into the economic, social, and cultural affects that it had and is still giving in the Caribbean using Haiti as a focal point.
“ For years, the Caribbean has been plagued with the pervasive and enduring problem of gender inequality. Gender, as a social construct, became popular during the 1960’s and 70’s and refers to “a set of qualities and behaviors expected from males and females by society” (United States Agency for International Development [USAID], 2005, p.12). While ‘sex’ refers to differences between males and females which are biologically determined and constant, ‘gender’ refers to those differences which are socially constructed and subject to change” (Coomarsingh & →, 2017)
All Caribbean societies have as their core the influence of an inherited Economic system which stems from colonialism and which has perpetuated throughout centuries with little or no modifications (Beckford 1972). In adhering to the criteria of this paper, I will attempt to explain the significance of the Moyne Commission and its recommendations, show home the Elizabethan Poor Laws is a reflection of the Commission and explain the relationship between Social welfare and Social work.
The Plantation society theory tries to explain the social Caribbean structure in relation to the plantation experience. According to Professor George Beckford “plantation societies are characterized by the existence of a right social hierarchy based on labour, racial and cultural differences, large areas of land denoted to production, Authoritarian management centralized, among other things”. The plantation model stresses on the existence of two classes – “a white/free class which owned the means of production and a black/slave class which owned labour”. This model shines a spotlight on the traditional Marxist argument which speaks about the unequal distribution of wealth and power. The plantation society model serves to authenticate the assertion that occupation was linked through race. Although wealth and power can be inherited, they are also the products of occupation.
Sindney W. Mintz, “The Caribbean as a Socio-Cultural Area,” in M. Horowitz, Peoples & Cultures of the Caribbean (Garden City, N.J., 1971).
Modernization theory is an unworkable guide for facilitating Caribbean growth because of the many weaknesses, which have been highlighted. The modernization theory although is without a doubt one of he most influential theory, is in fact an unworkable guide to Caribbean development as it simply describes the development process without showing how it might be achieved. The theory is in fact a unilinear, ethnocentric theory and it is with all it's shortcomings which one can conclude that it provides an unworkable guide to Caribbean development.